Thursday, April 27, 2017

When a Christian Woman Interrupted a Muslim Prayer Service at Washington's National Cathedral - "Jesus Christ died on that cross. He is the reason we are to worship only Him."

This 32 second video clip (see end of post) has recently been making the rounds on Twitter (I just retweeted it). But in fact it is from 2014.It's from a Muslim prayer service held at Washington D.C.'s National Cathedral. As a taqiyah capped imam is about to start a prayer in front of an assembled audience - hijab clad muslimas sitting on chairs on one side, Muslim males squatting on carpets on another, non-muslim (I think) male observers sitting in the back - a Christian woman walks toward the podium, points to a cross and shouts:

Jesus Christ died on that cross. He is the reason we are to worship only Him. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. We have built enough of your mosques in this country. Why don’t you worship in your mosques and leave our churches alone? . . . America was founded on Christian principles . . . Leave our church alone!

She is quickly hustled out by two men, one of whom appears to be a purple-robed Episcopal priest.

The National Cathedral is owned and administered by the Episcopal Church, which, as everyone knows, is currently about as Christian as my coffee mug. It was erected under a charter from the United States government and has hosted all sorts of major events, from funerals of presidents to memorial services - including one to the victims of 9/11.

But it still is technically a Christian church, with crosses and other Christian symbols and art everywhere. For this Muslim service - an invitation only function put together by the South African ambassador - the worship space was arranged so that the worshippers would see as few of the crosses and other symbols as possible.

I should note that while the Church appears to be now open to Muslim worship, it's not exactly equal-opportunity for all ideologies. In 2016, two stained-glass images of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson (of all people), were taken down.

Some might argue that the idea of a "national cathedral," complete with Civil War heroes on the windows, is silly at best, and inappropriate or even blasphemous at worst. ACLU-type people and traditionalist Catholics might agree on this one. (Yes it would be different if this were, say, an officially Catholic country, but it's not.) Even when the United States was recognized as a Christian country, there were all sorts of opposed Christian faiths that hated each other.

That's the point, others might say, let's drop all of our hate and just come together for worship. Or at least just come together to . . .come together.

I'm sure Pope Francis would be happy to help.

And I suppose if you're going to have religiously meaningless "services" in the Cathedral for nominal Christian politicians who wouldn't know Christ from Father Christmas, then it's almost logical to allow Muslims and Hare Krishnas and Raelians and entrails readers and anyone else with beads and a few pamphlets to use it as well, as long as they are, you know, American.

Or ambassadors from South Africa.

I think the fact that Muslims would embrace the opportunity to, so to speak, invade the space, speaks to the aggressive nature of that religion.

Or not. Maybe they just wanted a nice old stone building with lots of fluted columns and flying buttresses to pray in. It beats that second story room over the auto-shop.

But I want to come back to that Christian woman. I assume the above considerations were not foremost in her mind. Rather, she saw Christ being mocked. Followers of a false and barbaric parody of a religion were literally squatting in His space, readying themselves to pray to their cruel god, while purple frocked "Christian" prelates looked on.

"Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what fellowship do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what sharing does light have with darkness?Further, what harmony is there between Christ and Be'lial?Or what portion does a faithful person have with an unbeliever? And what agreement does God's temple have with idols? . . . "Therefore, get out from among them and separate yourselves," says the Lord, "and quit touching the unclean thing." 2 Corinthians 6:14 - 17.

"You are my friends IF you do what I am commanding you." John 15:14.

"Further, he went on to say to them; "Adroitly you set aside the commandment of God in order to retain your tradition . . . And thus you make the word of God invalid by your tradition which you handed down. And many things similar to this you do." Mark 7:9 - 13.

There's no doubt this took courage, and it would take courage even if it were a group of Jehovah's Witnesses. I admire her very much. The point is well taken, we have no Cardinals with the apparent zeal that this woman has.